One in two people think taxes should rise to protect NHS services, according
to a poll by Ipsos MORI, amid mounting concern that serious cuts to health
services will soon have to be made.

The polling firm found 48 per cent of people said they wanted to “increase taxes in order to maintain the level of spending needed to keep the current level of care and services provided by the NHS”.

A fifth (21 per cent) said spending on other areas like education and welfare should be cut to protect the NHS, while a tenth (11 per cent) said the level of service provided by the NHS should drop so tax rises were not needed.

The survey was carried out for the Nuffield Trust, a leading health think tank.

It is predicting that major cuts to NHS services will be needed over the next decade.

David Cameron says the Government has protected the NHS budget, and it is being increased in line with general inflation.

But doctors argue this is not enough to keep pace with the increasing demands placed on the NHS by Britain’s aging population.

As a result, they say, routinely-funded services will have to go unless the NHS can be made to work much more efficiently, or more money is found.

Managers have already been tasked with making about £5 billion worth of ‘efficiency savings’ a year, for four years until April 2015.

The Nuffield Trust believes these savings - about five per cent of the annual NHS budget - will have to continue beyond the end of the decade unless the economy drastically improves.

But economists there have calculated even that will not be enough to avert cuts to services.

Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos MORI, said: “The results of this poll show the lengths the public say they are willing to go to, to protect current NHS services.”

Anita Charlesworth, chief economist at the Nuffield Trust, said: “There are no easy options for health beyond the current spending review.

“Without unprecedented, sustained increases in productivity, funding for health in England will need to increase in real terms after 2014-15 to avoid cuts to the service or a fall in the quality of care patients receive.”

She said that fact half of people would opt to increase taxes to protect the NHS “should be seen as an act of faith in the health service”.